Cisco has completed its acquisition of the security and observability business Splunk.
The acquisition, valued at around $28 billion in equity value, intends to lay the foundations for delivering "unparalleled visibility and insights across an organisation’s entire digital footprint", according to Cisco's official announcement.
To ensure a cohesive operational ecosystem, Cisco and Splunk aim to integrate the disparate elements that drive a business, including people, places, applications, data, and devices. This collaboration safeguards their digital infrastructure from cybersecurity threats, downtime, and other significant business risks.
Chuck Robbins, Chair and CEO of Cisco, commented:
We are thrilled to officially welcome Splunk to Cisco. As one of the world’s largest software companies, we will revolutionize the way our customers leverage data to connect and protect every aspect of their organization as we help power and protect the AI revolution."
Cisco will harness the extensive capabilities of its network, along with its advanced security and observability solutions, to provide a unified, real-time view of the digital landscape. This integration empowers teams to proactively defend critical infrastructure, mitigate outages, and enhance the general network experience.
“Uniting Splunk and Cisco will bring tremendous value to our joint customers worldwide,” added Gary Steele, Executive Vice President, General Manager, Splunk. “The combination of Cisco and Splunk will provide truly comprehensive visibility and insights across an organisation’s entire digital footprint, delivering an unprecedented level of resilience through the most extensive and powerful security and observability product portfolio on the market.”
Furthermore, Cisco states its commitment to fueling and safeguarding the AI revolution. Organisations require robust infrastructure to support the full potential of AI, ample data for development, a comprehensive security platform to safeguard it, and an observability platform for real-time monitoring and management to unlock the full potential of AI. Cisco endeavours to address all these facets simultaneously via the Splunk acquisition.
How the Acquisition Intends to Benefit Customers, Developers and Partners
Firstly, the suggested benefit of improved security through a highly comprehensive security solution is that it offers threat prevention, detection, investigation, and response capabilities tailored for organisations of any size. Leveraging cloud, network, and endpoint traffic provides excellent visibility into potential security threats.
Secondly, a highly comprehensive full-stack observability solution is designed to ensure exceptional digital experiences across multi-cloud hybrid environments. Meanwhile, a leading secure networking solution delivered on intelligent, resilient, and continually optimised network infrastructure is also promised to be delivered.
The partnership also promises to deliver better AI. Cisco's networking portfolio, complemented by enhanced security measures, full-stack observability capabilities, and a robust data platform, empowers customers to securely leverage the potential of AI across their organisations and applications.
